Fed Seeks to Ban, Fine Ex-Barclays Trader in FX Manipulation (1)

16 febbraio 2018 - 23.38

(Bloomberg) -- Former Barclays Plc trader Peter Little, a member of “the Cartel” chat room where bank traders allegedly manipulated foreign-exchange rates, is being fined $487,500 by the Federal Reserve and permanently banned from U.S. banking.

Little, who led the Barclays FX spot desk in New York, used electronic chat rooms to manipulate currency pricing benchmarks and failed to properly supervise subordinate traders, the Fed said in a statement Friday. The sanctions against Little follow Fed banking bans imposed on former Barclays traders Christopher Ashton and Michael Weston.

Traders from Barclays were associated with the Cartel -- the name given to a now-notorious chat room used by senior traders at banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and UBS to share information and agree on ways to try to move currency benchmarks including the so-called 4 p.m. fix. The Fed fined six banks for currency rigging and said the lenders had to cooperate in the investigation against employees.

“Mr. Little will fight and prevail against the Federal Reserve’s baseless allegations,” Michael Watsula, a lawyer representing Little, said in an emailed statement. “The Federal Reserve denied Mr. Little any meaningful opportunity to explain the fundamental error of its theories before it sullied his good name with these charges.”

Little will be permitted to request a hearing within 20 days to challenge the sanctions.

(Updates with comment from Little’s lawyer in fourth paragraph.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Hamilton in Washington at jhamilton33@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory Mott at gmott1@bloomberg.net, Jesse Westbrook at jwestbrook1@bloomberg.net.